Friday, March 30, 2012

When Tax Credits Aren’t Worth the Trouble

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It’s no secret that I disagree with those who use the tax law to accomplish indirectly what should be handled directly by government agencie...
Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Taxes as to Sports or Sports as to Taxes?

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It is not uncommon for me to use a sports analogy when teaching tax law to illustrate, emphasize, or clarify a point. I’m not the only tax p...
Monday, March 26, 2012

The Bad Tax System That Will Not Die Might Get Another Lease on Life

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There is another chapter in the continuing and almost eternal story about Philadelphia’s attempts to fix its broken property tax system. My ...
Friday, March 23, 2012

Does the New York Sales Tax Discourage Suit Purchases?

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Recently, as explained in New York State Sales Tax Technical Memorandum TSB-M-12(3)S , the New York sales tax exemption for clothing and foo...
Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Reduced Legal Education Does Not Guarantee Better Preparation for Law Practice

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The rapidly growing legal education crisis (which I explored seven years ago in The Future of Legal Education and Law Faculty Activities ) h...
Monday, March 19, 2012

REPOST: Sorry I Wrote

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[Reposted from January 2005 because it no longer appears in the monthly archive because of blogspot page length restrictions] Time to wander...

Tax Return Preparation Disaster

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One of my readers alerted me to a story of which I had been unaware. It involves a tax return preparation enterprise that has created nightm...
Friday, March 16, 2012

The Futility of Tax Incentives

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For many years reaching back to long before MauledAgain existed, and in many postings on that blog, I have rejected the use of tax law to ac...
Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Promising Progress on the K-12 Tax Education Front

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Tax professionals, tax educators, school board members, high school principals and teachers, and taxpayers generally ought to set aside seve...
Monday, March 12, 2012

When Tax Advice Is Frightening

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The other day I heard a commercial on the local news radio station. A jewelry store chain was singing the praises of its business, and close...
Friday, March 09, 2012

Refund-Based Tax Return Preparation Fees

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A recent story about yet another public figure running into a tax problem caught my attention not so much because it involved false tax ret...
Wednesday, March 07, 2012

When Tax Troubles Pile On

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The recently issued opinion of the United States Tax Court in Martignon v. Comr. , T.C. Summary Opinion 2012-18 (March 1, 2012) describes a...
Monday, March 05, 2012

Chocolate? Yes!

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Here we go again! More proof that chocolate is medicinal. Check out this report , forwarded to me by my sister, about the flavonoid epicatec...

Taxes, Citizenship, and Shame

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The practice of publishing the names of tax scofflaws has become commonplace. For example, Pennsylvania has been issuing this sort of list s...
Friday, March 02, 2012

Tax Insanity? Tax Hilarity? Tax Satire?

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I hope it is a joke. I think it is a joke. It probably is a joke. It might even be excellent satire. I fear that some people will take it se...
Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Precision of Tax Language

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Last week, I was reading an article about partnership taxation when I came upon something very disturbing. Rather than embarrassing the auth...
Monday, February 27, 2012

Getting to the Tax Return on Time

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For most people, trips to the gym generate benefits for their physical health. My gym visits not only improve my physical condition, at leas...
Friday, February 24, 2012

Tax: Perspective Matters

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Adopting an approach taken in other states, Pennsylvania is adding to the income tax form a line on which people are expected to “declare ‘u...
Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Tax Statutes: More than Just the Internal Revenue Code

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Back in December, when the Congress decided to extend the payroll tax cut by two months, I explained, in How Politics Generates Tax Complexi...
Monday, February 20, 2012

From Tax Until Eternity

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Suppose a person owes $2.5 million to another person. How much would be an appropriate monthly payment to pay off the debt plus interest acc...
Friday, February 17, 2012

Tax Computations of the Daily Kind

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A question on the ABA-TAX listserve [list subscribers can access the discussion here ] gave me a reason to look more closely at how the tax ...
Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Tax Code Overuse

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When it comes to politics, I dine at the buffet. My focus is on the nation, principles, and policies, rather than on policies, caucuses, or ...